


Submerged and struggling with

by gotobedavenue



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Depression, Hydra, M/M, Multi, Multiverse, Other, Suicide, jk, tony you slut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:24:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7033357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotobedavenue/pseuds/gotobedavenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stark has judgement issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intro

I'm an impractical Stark on the roof of a stranger's house, nowhere else better to be since the universe has been moving me.

I can't fly around the blue world gazing at the clouds and tangoing with the stars because I've given up on rebuilding and stealing my suits.

After a while, I show up at avengers headquarters or wherever I am/he is and sometimes explain my predicament.

Recently, I've started to sneak in. No one questions when they see me. Jarvis usually assumes I'm a glitch. There can't possibly be two Tony Starks. The other mes whose worlds I show up in, all tend to be working in their labs. Too distanced for anyone to notice when it's really him or me. I suppose I'm just summing up my experiences to avoid talking about anything that matters.

Not now head, I'm trying to get my shit together. This Stark is trying to rebuild something important: himself.

I started out the way most Starks do. You know, the typical self-proclaimed eccentric genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist. Then I had a lot of nightmares that wouldn't go away and refused to get any sort of help for them. Pepper left, Banner left, the Avengers kinda didn't exist anymore, and I started to disappear into my work. Everything was fine but unconscious me didn't agree with that sentiment.

At first, the nightmares were just another excuse to not sleep.

Then they were something to joke about.

Then they were something I thought about getting help over, but that's not a good look. Iron man gets help over some stupid nightmares, ha, please.

They became insufferable, though. They were like cuts that never healed, cuts that reopened, and I kept getting new ones. I felt like I should've just downloaded my brain into a hard drive to give to the world for advancements and left. Okay, maybe left isn't technically the correct word but you know what I'm talking about. I just don't feel like the real word needs to be brought up because it's not like I'm weak or anything. I just don't-sorry-didn't feel like I needed to deal with the nightmare bullshit anymore.

So for a few weeks or so, I kinda just made an AI program that relatively resembled me (the parts that were useful), downloaded it to a few portable hard drives, and sent them to Cap and his gang of fugitives. Thought that was it.

Found the right time and means. Found the right setting.

Then, they showed up to the middle of nowhere during an hour of the morning which didn't have a sun. I nearly had a heart attack. Closed my hand and put the means in my pocket. The original Avengers...or at least I thought so.

"Banner! Thor! Where've you guys been? You're a whole season behind Game of Thrones, we've got some catching up to do."

They all kind of looked at each other.

"So Cap, who called this meeting?"

"Well, in a way, you did...got anything you need to talk about Stark?" Cap replied.

"Nope," I answered backing away as he tried to enter my personal space.

Long story short, all the Avengers clones had their original counterparts memories up until the moment they were created which wasn't too long before they showed up. They were told what they were, what I was about to do, and that meeting their original selves could possibly cause the end of the world. I thought they had all lost it, especially since they basically kidnapped me from that spot and had me on watch 24/7 for who knows how long in a very boring white room. I tried to talk to them about every single subject except the one they wanted to discuss with me.

What was I supposed to do?

Open up to a bunch of psychotic kidnapping ex-teammates?

One day, though, on hawkeye's watch, during one of our angry staring contests, Cap came in with a cell phone that had one number in it. "You should let them know you're okay but you can't help out right now." He instructed, sitting down on the bed next to me.

"Uh-okay?"

I assumed it was either Pepper and someone, perhaps the government; I called it. The guy who was sitting next to me had a voice clone who kept asking if anyone was there.

"What kind of impractical joke is this? Did you pre-record your voice or something?"

"STARK? Where have you been?"

I hung up.

"Yup, prerecorded and I gotta hand it to you, the whole act like I've been gone thing despite sitting next to you is Very creative. I'm not sure what exactly it's supposed to achieve but...This callback effect is getting real annoying."

"Well Stark, I guess you did let them know you were okay at least..."

Bastard took the phone from me.

I didn't figure out that I had been flirting with the clone version of cap till a long time after the actual originals showed up one day while I was asleep.

I was confused. I mean, I'm still confused about past me. How I didn't see that they were clones until I saw them die. Until the originals saw their dead bodies. It was a real turning point for all of us...but I'm not here to whine about that.

or about confusion...I just want to know what gets rid of the nightmares vs what brings them back.

I'm writing for source material.


	2. memory glitches,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stark has trust issues with his mind.

It's a fact that all of my memories are mere glitches so I don't know what the fuck I'm trying to do but it's better to have tried than to have died or something like that.

Ok, so I was shot up in my sleep with the worst serum in the world, you know the stuff Cap's cursed with, which means alcohol is no longer able to cure my insomnia. No longer able to have dreamless nights. Which means I'm less likely to die which puts me further from my own cure as well as Cap's. I mean, who knows, maybe this is how Cap started off, maybe the serum causes your mind to warp beyond recognition.   
Still, the nightmares started before all of this. I just can't remember.  
It's just so long ago, I don't know when they started cause I'm an idiot and assumed they weren't that bad, that I'd get better on my own.

The Manchurian candidate's been stalking me. From multi-verse to multi-verse. I bet he has nightmares. Not that we're ever going to be capable of having a real conversation.   
He hates the name Bucky but never comes up with an alternative. Which is just weak, I mean, I still like being called Stark and if I didn't I'd have a prepared alternative. If I didn't have an alternative, I definitely wouldn't be glaring at anyone who gave me different nicknames every time I saw them. I mean, what's a guy supposed to do to get nameless assassin Russian's attention? Throw stuff at him?  
We don't talk. We have a healthy almost silent relationship, he stitches me up when I get almost killed by Cap and I try to stop him every single time. Guy's a nuisance. 

I always, and still continue to think that my original Cap is a good person, which might be a glitch too, but it's a glitch I can die with.   
Does this mean I'm to blame for every single person Cap kills? Definitely. I allow him to live every time he finds me.  
Yeah, so maybe I've checked every type of mind control, body switching, or blackmailing options I can get my hands on...maybe I just haven't found the right thing.   
I mean, who in their right mind would believe that Captain America would "Hail HYDRA."   
The guy's an angel of angels. Thor's hammer wishes it was worthy enough to be lifted by Steve Rogers...He doesn't even believe in swearing for fucks sake the guys too bright to look at sometimes. 

So, source material. Right.   
My nightmares are nothing in comparison to what Cap'll feel when he's back to normal. If he's even able to remember what he's doing. The longer I put it off the worse it'll be.

Perhaps memory is the key. I mean, perhaps Cap recently joined hydra due to stress? If I were to just cognitively recalibrate him...maybe he wouldn't...I mean, I saw what happened way back when we all tried to lift Thor's hammer, Cap was almost capable. A REAL hydra agent, assuming the hammer's actually nice guys only, would never be able to almost lift it. Maybe, he would have been able to lift that hammer easily a week before that...Maybe that's when things took a turning point and that's why he couldn't lift it that day. Which means I just need to wipe a few years of memory away...

**Author's Note:**

> to be continued...


End file.
